The British had mocked at Jamsedji Tata’s plans to establish an indigenous steel plant in India, with Sir Frederick Upcott, head of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, saying, “I shall eat every pound of steel rail the Tatas succeed in making.” The archives of Indian Railways have no record of how many pounds of steel the arrogant angrez ate once the project got underway in 1912. Similarly, when Jamsedji’s worthy scion, Ratan Tata, unveiled the Indica car in 2001, he disproved many sceptics. More recently, Nano is his answer to nay-sayers who had said “impossible”, when he promised to make the world’s cheapest car in India. If nation-building is about building national pride, Tata Steel and Tata Motors have built a good deal of “Yes, we can do it” spirit among Indians.

But it is from Japan that we can truly learn a deeper philosophy linking manufacturing and the making of a great nation. One evening early last year, while looking for second-hand books on the pavements of Matunga in Mumbai, a title caught my attention — The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer, by Jeffrey Liker.

“Toyota is as much a state of mind as it is a car company,” said a blurb on the book-cover. I completed reading it overnight, and said to myself, “This is mind-expanding stuff. The best minds in politics and governance in India must read this treatise to get ideas on national reconstruction.”

This conviction was reinforced when, during a visit to Japan last year, I made it a point to spend a day at Toyota’s sprawling headquarters in Nagoya.

“Respect for Humanity” is at the foundation of the Toyota Way, also known as the Toyota Production System (TPS), which is now studied globally by students of manufacturing management. The company’s president Fujio Cho says, “Since Toyota’s founding, we have adhered to the core principle of contributing to society through the practice of manufacturing high-quality products and services. Our business practices based on this core principle created values, beliefs and business methods that over the years have become a source of competitive advantage. These are known collectively as the Toyota Way.”

I shall briefly summarise the 14 Toyota Way principles and then, in the next column, offer a few thoughts on how India — not just the managers in our car companies, not just members of the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, but also our political leaders — can usefully imbibe them in a wide range of organisations.

• Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial gains. Have a philosophical sense of purpose and mission that supersedes any short-term decision-making. Work, grow, and align the whole organisation toward a common purpose that is bigger than making money.

• The Right Process will produce the Right Results. Don’t hide problems within the organisation, but create continuous process flow to bring them to the surface.

• Avoid overproduction by following the principle of just-in-time — namely, customers should get what they want, when they want it, and in the amount they want.

• Eliminate waste of human and material resources. Also, strive to cut back to zero the amount of time that any work project is sitting idle or waiting for someone to work on it.

• Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time.

• Standardised tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment. Capture the accumulated learning about a process by institutionalising today’s best practices and allow employees to improve the standard through creative self-expression.

• Use visual and manual control so that no problems are hidden.

• Use technology to support people, not to replace people. Reject or modify technologies that conflict with your work culture. Nevertheless, encourage your people to consider new technologies when looking into new approaches to work.

• Develop such leaders in your organisation who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others. Do not view the leader’s job as simply accomplishing tasks. Leaders must be role models of the company’s philosophy and way of doing business.

• Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy. Make an ongoing effort to teach individuals to work together as teams toward common goals.

• Have respect for your business partners and suppliers and treat them as an extension of your business.

• Continuously solving root problems improves organisational learning. Even high-level managers should go and see things for themselves, so that they will have more than a superficial understanding of the situation.

• Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; but implement decisions rapidly.

• Become a learning organisation through relentless reflection (hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen). Protect the organisation’s knowledge and cultural base by developing stable personnel, careful promotion, and well thought-out succession systems.